“Do you know her?” Myuke asked, feeling a bit awkward about being left out of the conversation. She pushed Anima to quickly introduce her.
“Remember when I went out to get Marie her birthday present? I ran into, umm...”
“Camilla.”
“I ran into Camilla when I escorted her daughter Ena back to her.”
“You’re helping people even when we’re not there, huh?”
Myuke was impressed with his good deed. Earning his daughter’s respect filled Anima with a sense of pride.
“And Camilla, this is Myuke.”
Myuke bowed slightly to her.
“I want to learn how to cook so I can help Mommy out! I’m not very good yet, but I’ll work super hard on everything you show us, so please be patient while I learn everything I can!”
“Don’t worry; I’ll try to teach you everything you need to know. I really like cooking, and the more the merrier. We’ll have plenty of fun in the kitchen, okay?”
Myuke happily nodded to Camilla’s encouraging reply. They seemed to have finished their introductions, which gave Anima the chance to ask something that has been on his mind.
“Is Ena inside?”
The house was really quiet, so if she was home, she was probably sleeping.
“She’s out with my husband.”
“Oh, they went out? Sorry to make you stay behind.”
“Ah, no, it’s not like that! I was planning to stay home today anyway.” She smiled at Anima. “Today is actually my birthday.”
“I see. Well then, happy birthday.”
“Happy birthday!”
“Thank you. You know, that little rascal was practically screaming in the kitchen to my husband about how she’s going to surprise me.”
Ena had gone out with her Dad to buy a present for Camilla, which explained why Camilla had been happy to stay at home. Anima would have done exactly the same if his girls did that for him.
“She sounds like a great little girl!”
“She really is! I can’t wait for her to get home, but she’s so incredibly curious that there’s no such thing as a short outing with her. She has to look at every last thing, and asks you about all the things that are around her! I wouldn’t expect her to get home until the evening, so I’m all yours until then. Ah, but don’t worry; I’ll help you even after she gets home. You don’t understand how grateful I am to you for bringing her back to me, Anima.”
“That’s incredible; thank you. We’d like to come three times a week, if that works for you.”
“That’d be perfect.”
Anima was worried that she would find his request to be too burdensome, so he was incredibly relieved when she accepted it with a smile. Even so, he didn’t want to trouble her for too long. He wanted to learn to cook as quickly as possible so that he could help Luina out in the kitchen.
“Can we get started?”
“Of course! Grandma told me that you’re looking into making healthy food, is that right?”
Anima nodded.
“My wife, Luina, is pregnant. I don’t want to overwhelm her with heavy food.”
Camilla had a daughter, so she surely understood what Anima was going for. She likely had experience in that style of cooking.
“Okay. Follow me to the kitchen.”
He and Myuke followed her through the immaculate hallway and into the kitchen, the room farthest back in the house. It was smaller than what they were used to, with the table and kitchen range taking up around half the space, but it was at least as clean as if not cleaner than the hallway.
“I probably should have asked earlier, but what are we doing about ingredients?”
“You can use anything you find in here.”
“That’s too much. You’re already sacrificing your free time to teach us; we can’t possibly use up your ingredients.”
“Please, it’s completely fine. Grandma always brings over so many ingredients that we don’t know what to do with them—especially pumpkin. We have a lot of pumpkin, but since Ena doesn’t really like it, we don’t use it very often.” Anima suddenly got a strong urge to boast about how Marie would eat anything, but he quietly fought it off. Not only would it have been rude to bring that up, but Ena was younger than Marie, so it was possible that she would grow to like pumpkin in a year or two. “It’s funny; she started hating pumpkin because she saw me cut myself once while I was preparing one. She’s been refusing to eat it ever since.”
Camilla’s boasting about how kind her daughter was reignited Anima’s urge to boast about Marie, but he once again repressed it. He wanted to start cooking as soon as possible.
“Cutting pumpkins is actually really difficult, but once you learn how to deal with them, you can deal with pretty much anything else.”
“Ah, I wanna try cutting a pumpkin! I wanna see if the knife I got is comfortable!”
“Be careful not to cut yourself.”
Myuke put the case down on the table and took the knife from it. Camilla praised her on the cute design, which made her even more excited to use it.
“How big should I cut it?”
“Cut it into small, bite-size pieces. We’ll be frying them in butter later. We’ll also be making pork and beans today, so we’re going to be busy.”
“Fried pumpkin is one thing, but isn’t pork and beans kinda tough to make?”
“Is it that difficult?” Anima asked.
“I don’t exactly know how to make it, but steaming soybeans takes like half a day. Or, well, steaming them doesn’t take that long, but you have to soak them in water for that long before you can start working with them.”
Unfortunately, they didn’t have that much time. Anima had promised the girls that they would be home by dinner, and he was set on keeping that promise.
“Do you know how to steam the beans?” Camilla asked Myuke.
“Yeah, of course. That’s easy.”
“Perfect. I’ve already soaked them, so could you steam them for me? It should be simple for you.” That crisis was averted. Plus, since Myuke knew how to steam soybeans, Anima could always ask her about it given that he had no idea. “Now, let’s get to it! Remember, slow and steady wins the race. There’s no rush, so be careful not to cut yourselves.”
With that, their first cooking lesson had officially begun.